The Tories take our thousands and offer back a tiny tax-allowance carrot

Party conference pre-election bribes

SIR – David Cameron, the leader of the Conservatives, trumpeted a £200 tax break for married couples on the very day when thousands of us were dropping off our children at university, to face an £18,000 fees hike over a three-year course.

If he doesn’t expect us to feel as if we are being treated as fools, what does he expect?

John Tipping Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire

SIR – I wish politicians would stop courting votes with ill-thought-out carrots. The electorate yearns for less government, less tax and the freedom to dispose of its income as it chooses.

Alex Turner Basingstoke, Hampshire

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SIR – The party conference season has brought a pre-election bribe-athon, with free school meals, frozen energy bills and married-couple allowances.

But, given the uproar created by the introduction of the Same Sex Marriage Bill – which did not feature in any party’s manifesto – perhaps the electorate should be more concerned with things the parties intend to introduce but won’t have the courtesy to mention before the election.

Jonathan Lister Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire

SIR – The Prime Minister says that marriage should be encouraged, and I agree. Yet by using the tax system, he will give those who become widows or widowers a £200 tax increase. Can it be right that the mourning wife of a soldier killed in action gets a higher tax bill?

Andrew Taylor Hove, East Sussex

SIR – Mr Cameron’s preoccupation with securing a second coalition with the Liberal Democrats (report, September 28) doesn’t inspire confidence. I don’t know whether it is due to arrogance or stupidity that he is not entering into discussions with Ukip, whose membership is largely made up of Right-of-centre Labour supporters and disaffected Tories.

Lance Warrington Northleach, Gloucestershire

SIR – It will not surprise Conservatives that Mr Cameron has held talks about a second coalition. It seems that he has finally recognised that his brand of politics without principle is so repulsive to former and potential Conservative voters that he has no other chance of clinging to power.

Dr Max Gammon London SE16

SIR – You report that Mr Cameron is seeking a further coalition with the Liberal Democrats to foil those people who vote against him.

I suggest he also seeks a coalition with Labour, and we can stop wasting money on elections.

Brian Gilbert Hampton, Middlesex

The cost of drink

SIR – Britain has a drinking problem. Every year, alcohol-related harm is estimated to cost society £21 billion and the NHS in England £3.5 billion, yet we continue to drink to massive excess.

The Government’s 2012 Alcohol Strategy rightly committed it to a minimum unit price for alcohol and better access to treatment. But 18 months later, pricing proposals have now been dropped and treatment rates remain shamefully low.

The simplest way to reduce alcohol-related harm is to ban irresponsibly cheap drinks. This has been demonstrated in countries such as Canada, where minimum unit pricing has led to a 32 per cent reduction in wholly alcohol-related deaths.

Despite the enormous economic impact, and the burden on individuals and families, only about 6 per cent of people in England who are dependent on alcohol receive treatment. Yet evidence shows that for every £1 invested in specialist alcohol treatment, £5 is saved on health, welfare and crime costs.

The NHS acknowledges the impact of alcohol-related liver disease. A reduction in alcohol consumption would help to alleviate this and other such diseases.

As the Conservative Party meets in Manchester, we urge David Cameron to reinstate his commitment to minimum unit pricing and increased access to treatment.

Dr Francis Keaney Vice-Chairman, Addiction Faculty, Royal College of Psychiatrists

Dr Kieran Moriarty British Society of Gastroenterology

Dr Tony Rao Chairman, Royal College of Psychiatrists Older People’s Substance Misuse Working Group

Paul Richardson Royal Liverpool University

Jonathan Shepherd Cardiff University

Dr Jenny Lisle

Dr Louise Sell

Dr Fiona Wisniacki

Believers’ rights

SIR – We agree that the West must help persecuted Christians, whose plight has long been ignored in the media (Cristina Odone, Comment, September 26).

However, rarely in these situations is one minority suffering alone. For instance, although Christians in Pakistan are being murdered with impunity, so too are Hindus, Ahmadiyya and Shia Muslims.

It is time to talk of these situations in terms of human rights. It is time to talk in the same breath of the Christians in Syria; the Shia Muslims in Quetta, Pakistan; the Rohingya Muslims in Burma; the humanists in Indonesia; and the Baha’is in Iran.

The Foreign Office has made freedom of religion or belief a priority. Human rights abuses for many faiths and for humanists are on the increase. Supporters of our all-party group disagree theologically but agree on the right to freedom of religion or belief of those they profoundly disagree with.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has commented on BBC Radio 4: “We would stand up for any minority that is being targeted because of its faith. It is not acceptable to attack people because of their faith.”

It is 65 years since freedom of religion or belief was enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the wake of the Holocaust.

We shall be asking the Government to commemorate this anniversary with the appointment of an Ambassador on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

Baroness Berridge (Con), Chairman

Lord Alton (Crossbench)

Jim Dobbin MP (Lab)

Angie Bray MP (Con)

Baroness Cox (Crossbench)

All Party Group on International Freedom of Religion or Belief London SW1

At a recent meeting at Wythenshawe Hospital (now the University Hospital South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust), I had the pleasure of meeting the Directorate Manager, Respiratory Medicine Directorate; the Directorate Manager, Cardiothoracic Directorate; someone from the Patient Experience Team and the Chief Nurse.

I can’t be certain, but I think they were all nurses.

Edwina Currie Jones High Peak, Derbyshire

Cut-off patients

SIR – Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary (Interview, September 28), insists that “GPs must treat elderly better”. He also says: “Doctors will be encouraged to consult their patients via email to save time and money.” Should he be reminded that, according to statistics, less than one in four elderly persons have access to the internet?

In Latin the ending -orium has the plural -oria. There are two endings -ndum: the future passive participle (sometimes confusingly called the gerundive) as in memorandum, which forms its plural in the same way as -orium, and the gerund, which, in Latin, has no plural at all.

If referendum meant “a matter which should be referred to the people”, the plural would end in -a. But it does not: it means the act of reference. Referenda is therefore a malapropism.

Philip Roe St Albans, Hertfordshire

Stamp of Britishness

SIR – As the instigator of the oldest postal service, Britain is not required to show the name of the country, just the monarch’s head. It is one of the many things that defines the nation. Selling off the Royal Mail would be inappropriate if the Queen’s head cannot be guaranteed to appear on our stamps.

Dr A P J Lake St Asaph, Denbighshire

The myth of television detector vans

SIR – From 1960 to 1963, I served as a uniformed Customs officer at Newry on the border of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. Our patrol cars were serviced at the local post office garage where the TV detector vans (report, September 28) were also serviced.

We were often there with the drivers of the vans and engaged them in conversation. The vans were open and there was never anything in them. However, it was probably a very effective deterrent.

Bill Streeter Marlow Bottom, Buckinghamshire

SIR – As a television engineer at the time, I remember the old TV detector vans. The working principle was said to be based on picking up the high-frequency output from the third anode – that’s the whistling bit that connects 20,000 volts or so to the chunky body of old television tubes.

It may be that they don’t work today (no third anode), but they once did, I believe.

Joseph G Dawson Chorley, Lancashire

SIR – Television detector vans appeared all too regularly on the east London estate where I grew up in the Sixties. The alert would sound through the back gardens: “Switch off, switch off!”

One or two got caught, simply because their televisions were on too loud.

Lesley Thompson Lavenham, Suffolk

SIR – I’m surprised that the spokesman from TV Licensing was not forthcoming as to why the vans’ detection evidence did not feature in the leaked BBC document.

In answer to a Freedom of Information request from late December 2010, the Corporation – after some prodding – explained: “TVL uses detection evidence when applying for search warrants. If, following service of the warrant, an individual is found to be evading payment of the TV licence, then the evidence obtained via the search warrant is used in court, not the detection evidence.”